


Fraternal (Identical)

by ardett



Category: The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-The Death Cure, The Death Cure Spoilers, The Scorch Trials Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-23 22:10:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4894243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardett/pseuds/ardett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas thinks it might be the flowers that have to go (or maybe it's him that should be the one to go).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fraternal (Identical)

You look at your hand, glimpsing the flowers beneath your fingers. (Flowers are everywhere in Paradise, you don’t know why and you don’t know why it hurts so much.) Your knuckles flex as you turn your palm towards the earth. There’s dirt under your nails but no bruises or cuts left over from a forgotten era. An almost forgotten era.

His hands were always thinner than yours.

His fingers longer, too. His were bones and joints without any flesh over them, only callouses. You weren’t in the Glade long enough to earn those yourself. When you arrived, your skin was red and raw, his golden and grass stained. But later, his would be the one to crack with sunburn while yours turned dark.

Every other part of him was the same; more lithe than yours, sinews and ligaments where you had corded muscle. His hair glowed in the afterlight of dawn, yours absorbed the moonlight.

And he always had a few inches on you. In the Maze, he commanded that height, commanded respect and attention. That’s when you fell in love with him. Even later, when he hunched in on himself, shoulders always tight, knobs of his spine showing through his shirt, he was still a little taller, even if he felt so, so small.

Maybe you still love him. But now Newt’s gone. He’s dead and you’re alone. (You start guiltily at that thought, Minho’s constantly trying to get you to remember,  _ “You’re not alone, Thomas, you have to stop pushing us away, Thomas.” _ )

But you have to deal with your grief, no, you can’t be like him, not that way. You can’t let yourself be pushed to the edge like that, strong, you have to be strong.

There will always be that need for him, though. Without him, you’re not anything. There’s nothing to define yourself with. Your edges are blurring into where his used to be, you’re slipping into where he was, losing yourself over and over again.

_ No. Remind yourself, ground yourself, define yourself.  _ (Your fingers twist in the flowers and you think they hurt because he’s not here to see them, so why should you be?)

He was the one who held everyone together, you were the one who left people behind, always running, running off, running away. You were the one who needed to know everything, he was the one who already knew it wouldn’t matter in the end. While you looked away, he gave Winston the gun. Later, it would be your turn to pull the trigger.

And of course, the starkest of all contrasts, he’s dead and you’re alive. (Or maybe it’s the other way around?)

But maybe you both went a little crazy in the end. 

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't read the books in quite while, so I apologize that book canon and movie canon kind of mashed together, whoops.


End file.
